Loveblind
by Shadsie
Summary: Can redemption come to even the darkest of hearts? Can a man be saved even in death? The story of Legato and a lonely plant. A very surreal tale.


Notes and Disclaimers: I do not own Trigun. Yashuhiro Nightow does. I am making no money from this. Ya happy? 

The main idea for this fanfiction comes from my good online friend Tearoses. It began with an artwork she did, then she wrote her own great short fic about Legato and a lady Plant. This fic of mine is different, but it begins much the same as hers does. This, however, wound up a lot longer and more surreal. Enjoy this, Tearoses, this is for you! 

I also drew a great deal of inspiration from the story "Love After Death" by Wolfwoodepl and comments in the Reviews on said story by Dead Legato. 

To all of you, thanks. 

LOVEBLIND

Twice a month and sometimes once a week he would ride out to meet her. The lonely Plant stood upon the top of a stony hill. She was left there, forgotten, an ancient relic from an age that had passed long ago. Only the suns' harsh glare and the light of the moons caressed the glass of the gigantic lightbulb, glinting off its surface, greeted by no light from within, not even the faintest spark.

There used to be a town there, at the base of that stony hill, back in that ancient age, and it was peopled by those who took more than they gave. The only remains of that tiny village were a few old boards and rusted nails half-buried by the sand. 

The lone man ascended the hill, his thighs aching from his long ride. He cautiously reached his hands out to touch the glass at the base of the great bulb. He smiled at his reflection in the glass; his greasy hair parted over one eye. Slowly he felt a gentle warmth touch his fingers.

Eighty years ago the people who used to live around the Plant left without hope. Some journeyed to other towns; others staggered across the endless desert to fall. The man had smiled upon seeing some remains out in the wasteland, a skeleton in tattered clothing still clutching a pistol rusted beyond any use. The people who had lived here had been foolish. They had pushed their means of survival past its limits. They thought that the life within had died. 

A soft glow emanated from the bulb. A gentle face within smiled at Legato warmly. His left arm began to tremble. It always did when he woke her up, for it was the only part of him that belonged completely to Them. 

He attempted to transfer his thoughts to her, to tell her what he was feeling. He doubted that she could understand, and wondered why she seemed to care. They were superior beings, their thoughts and feelings far beyond his own comprehension. They were gods. He saw her eyes become sad as he spoke of killing some men in the town of Conestoga the day before. He didn't understand why she would be upset. He was making the world safe for her, eliminating the cockroaches from her house. He knew that one day, he too, would die, to leave her and her race to inherit a world that was rightfully theirs. They respected the land and did not rape beauty. He was a part of that rape, but it was only because it was in his nature, which he did not attempt to deny as many others chose to do.

A single tear fell down his cheek as he walked back to his thomas. He would never be pure…never be perfect, like her. 

__________________________________

Why was he begging for death? Why did he want the other man to betray his cause? She did not understand his hate, but only felt his pain. He was a child screaming desperately to be held, left laying alone in his own fluids. 

She looked up through the glass at the two suns, wondering. The suns were like the Brothers, sent from beyond time to nurture the world. The Brothers were protectors, but one chose to destroy. They corrupted him, and he made choices. The golden-eyed one chose to destroy. The golden-eyed one chose to die.

He was the only creature who chose to visit her upon her lonely hill besides the vulture or the hawk that stopped to rest upon her bulb, or the lizard crawling among the rocks. He chose to die. 

Agony rang through her head, pain, darkness, and silence. 

__

Brother, why did you do this? She called out, but the Protectors were like Them; they could not hear when they were not in close vicinity. 

For a day her mind reached out for visions. Men dug into the sand and placed the man who used to visit her into the ground. The Protector had been taken away, near death from wounds and from grief.

Her strength was small, lying gathered in the sands, slowly being regained over eighty years of retirement. They nearly killed her so long ago, the people who lived around her. She had now the power to support only one life. 

________________________________

"Myr – yk –l," the name formed slowly in her mind. What was this red liquid coming from her arm? Was she now one of Them?

"Myr – yk- l." 

She looked up at the slivers and the sunlight shimmering off them. 

"Myrykl." 

Men had given her that name, "Miracle," the Plant at Miracle. She remembered now, her town had been Miracle. 

Her body was weak and she was filled with pain. Things would not be as they once were. Never could she return.

___________________________________

Dirt filled his mouth and stench his nostrils. He climbed, digging through the sand and the loam, splinters breaking against his fists. He had to get away from the darkness. He felt the pain in his chest. He had stood before a man with eyes that glared like a demon's. Those eyes stared at him, and with his broken arm he had torn his own heart out. 

He stared down a gun barrel. A knife had split his flesh, carefully stripping skin from muscle and muscle from bone. He felt the fear, fear he deserved, fear that he _knew_, and pain that he had never known before, something not intertwined with ecstasy, something that was not transient, but deep and eternal. 

He took a deep breath, his lungs aching and his heart trying to burst from his chest. Light seared his eyes like a thousand flames and a million knives. The world around him smelt of decay and stale blood, of ice and fresh wind, of rust and dry earth. 

The man lifted himself up from the dirt and sand surrounding him. His clothing was tattered and covered in dried blood. He recoiled with a soft scream when his vision met the two hollow eyes of a small human skull. It was attached to the remains of what appeared to have once been a white coat, clinging to his thin pale body.

He tore the tatters off and stood naked against the suns. Who he was he did not know, he only knew that he had been dead. He was drawn to the north, and began walking. 

_________________________________

The soles of his feet burned against the desert sands. Grit ground down the enamel on his teeth. Flakes of old blood drifted off his hair in the violent wind until his hair was cleansed. 

Coyotes howled by night and ravens flew against the azure sky by day. The suns burned like brilliant topazes set among an ocean of pale sapphires. Memories came to him. He knew well what death smelt like, and the feeling that he had the first time he had killed a man simply to watch him die. His recollections filled him with shame. He was a murderer. He did not remember his name, only that someone had pulled him out of Hell.

He knew that in a life far away that he had wanted acceptance from his god. He was a Michael, a mighty archangel, a warrior killing in his Name. He inflicted judgement upon the guilty. His god was a god of judgement, but only of judgement and no mercy. 

In the darkness of the grave and the darkness beyond he realized that his god had been a lie. He thought he had found acceptance at last staring down the barrel of the silver gun when the bullet exploded in his brain. Instead, he had been rejected again, just as he had been all of his life. 

In the pale light of the moons at night he would look down at himself, pale, thin, and frail. He had scars on his body, a few small ones made by a whip, some that he recalled having made with his own long fingernails raked against his skin, and one large one forming a tattered bracelet around his left arm just below the shoulder. That arm in turn was covered in scars, more numerous than on the rest on his body. Stitch-marks traced around and across it. Two scars evidenced direct gunshot wounds. Others he didn't know what to make of.

His god from that life far away had given him that arm. He staggered in the sand as he remembered the wracking pains of the hour he had it grafted on, when rough pale hands tore his natural limb from him. He had longed for and was honored by it. He remembered the veins and nerves of the god's arm reaching out hungrily to intertwine and fuse with his own, bloody and dangling from his rent shoulder, seeking warmth and life. He had planned on using the arm to destroy cities when the time came, a time that never came for him.

As the man walked across the desert his thoughts turned to the man to whom his left arm had once belonged. That man fought for peace and cherished life. He sacrificed himself for others constantly and was almost always in grief. He had caused that man much of his grief, and had enjoyed it. Causing the man pain was the purpose of his life, what he did to please his false god. 

He heard a voice as the suns rose. He stopped in his tracks, his journey at an end. He had reached the oracle he was seeking and blinked at the sunlight glaring off its broken glass. 

"Legato," the voice said, "Legato Bluesummers, you have come!" 

Legato beheld a young female form before him, naked, and covered in many scabbed cuts. Her hair was white, as white as the high clouds that dropped rain on the mountains in winter. Beneath the silky mop of white that spilled over her shoulders was black. The roots of her hair were the color of raven's feathers. The irises of her small eyes were dark gray, almost as black as her pupils. 

She reached out to him and caressed his bare arms. She touched his face with the tips of her fingers and his lips with her lips, gently and slowly. Legato found himself returning her kiss.

Her mind in that moment became one with his. 

_My name is Myrykl. I brought you here._

****

I remember you. You are the Plant. Why are you out here in the wind and the harsh sand? 

__

I brought you from death to life, my Legato. In the process I became mortal. I will not live as long as I could have, but I am weary of standing upon my hill and counting the stars. I am like them now. You know of whom I speak, the Brothers. 

****

Why? Why did you do this for me? Why did you rescue me from my deserved fate? I am a destroyer. My life has only brought death and misery. 

__

I know, Legato, but I saw nobility in you. None came to my lonely hill since the last men and women of Miracle left me for dead. None came but you. 

****

Nobility in me? 

__

You are human. You've long despised that. You have the ability to feel, though you have long denied it, choosing instead to shield yourself and to equate pain with beauty. The true cause of my people is to love and watch over yours.

****

But we are animals. We are worse. We rape the world and each other. We feed off each other's pain and off the captivity and pain of your people. 

__

Not at all. My people are willing to serve yours, and to guide you. We see past tragedy. It was my choice to love you. Please be content. I see beauty in you, and I chose to be blind to the ugliness. I am loveblind, for that is the way of grace, and the true way of my people.

Legato and Myrykl parted. Legato stared at her. They stood gazing into one another's eyes for a long time.

"I am not at peace," Legato whispered, using his tongue and not his mind, which was out of his ordinary habit. "There is one I must see, the one I caused the most pain to. I must seek out Vash the Stampede. I must ask for his forgiveness. I do not completely understand what you are telling me."

Myrykl and Legato wandered together across the desert, aimless, yet with a destination. Legato whispered to himself as they walked. 

"Vash will teach me his way…"

One evening the man and Myrykl met a tall blond man with many scars. He fainted when he beheld the one. Pain, regret, and joy tore through Vash's heart. The woman of his people went with him and also Legato, who hoped that the man who had taken his life would lead him to his salvation. 

S. Nordwall, "Lady Shadowcat", 12/2001 


End file.
